CPAP and Electric loss

[Chitownbabs]

Since I am on the CPAP now, should I get a note from the Dr regarding losing electric power in my house? We had a pretty bad storm about a month ago, and we had no power for two days. Of course we do not have a generator (yet) so I could not use my CPAP. Is this machine the type that you can get a note from the Dr for the electric company so they react faster to a power outage? Two doors down from me lives a handicapped person who is on oxygen, you would think the electric company would have been out earlier for them, but they basically pack it up and go stay in a hotel until the electric is on.

Last year during a bad storm we lost power for three days. On both ocassions, besides not having power, I lost two refrigerators and one freezer full of food. Needless to say we had no power to cook etc. I am in the Chicagoland area.

[Snoredog]

Since I am on the CPAP now, should I get a note from the Dr regarding losing electric power in my house? We had a pretty bad storm about a month ago, and we had no power for two days. Of course we do not have a generator (yet) so I could not use my CPAP. Is this machine the type that you can get a note from the Dr for the electric company so they react faster to a power outage? Two doors down from me lives a handicapped person who is on oxygen, you would think the electric company would have been out earlier for them, but they basically pack it up and go stay in a hotel until the electric is on.

Last year during a bad storm we lost power for three days. On both ocassions, besides not having power, I lost two refrigerators and one freezer full of food. Needless to say we had no power to cook etc. I am in the Chicagoland area.

Why do you need a note from your doctor?

A UPS or generator is NOT a prescription device. You have to decide if you want to continue treatment if you live in a area with unreliable power. First thing you have to determine (from power reliability history), is does your power go off for more than a couple hours? do you live in Florida or LA where a hurricane comes through every other week like now where power may be off for 3 weeks or more? A battery backup won't help you unless you have a way to recharge it every day.

I have some friends in Baton Rouge and they say power won't be restored from this last storm for 3 weeks. Lines for gasoline are over an hour long. So unless you have a generator with 20-30 gallons of gas laying around, even then I doubt many run their generators all night long. For CPAP you don't need that much power.

A computer 800-1000VA UPS should work fine and run you all night long. If you know your power is off or going off you should use it with the heat on the humidifier off, it will run longer if you do that. But a computer UPS is automatic, you use it in-line with your machine's power all the time, when power goes off it switches automatically to the battery and when power is restored it recharges the battery. A self-contained unit. But you can only expect it to run 1 night or so. IF you plug the UPS into a generator and run it for several hours it should recharge.

If it was me, and my power was unreliable, I'd go for a 1000VA computer UPS with modified sine wave output, you can get those at Costco. IF my power was off for 2-3 days or 2-3 weeks due to where I live and hurricanes, I'd invest in a good generator that ran off of LP or natural gas.

[ww]

I have not had that good of luck with Computer UPS systems. Reason is because they are rated at 1000VA, they only have a very low watt hour rating based on the battery used 12V@12A is one of the largest used and with a 80% efficiency, it COULD power a CPAP without humidifier for up to 10 hours, but 4 hours is more like what you get in actual practice with a reasonable safety factor. Most UPS systems are only designed for up to 20 minutes of operation and are not efficient at low power output.

Compare that to a marine deep discharge battery I bought last week for $65 with 12V@115 amp hours. This will produce 100% efficiency with most CPAP units and provide up to a week or so of operation at 8 hours/day at 10 cm/H2O with nearly a 50% safety factor. I have 4 UPS machines to keep phones, routers, and other essentials on, but prefer the battery backup for the CPAP machine. YMMV.

[wlo2008]

I was told by my Electric company. Because we had a huge storm come through. over 100 mile winds lots of rain and so on. Lots of damage and our electric went out among the other thousands of people. But I called them and told them I am on a medical device and I was up with in three hours. They told me they will send a form for me to fill out and have my doctor sign verifing that I am on a medical device, that way if it happens again, I am put on a priority list with others that have medical devices as well. If it is more severe were they can't get the power up with in days, they said they would set me up in a shelter, having priority if I needed it.

[Babette]

Hey WW - I'm afraid of batteries. Help me out here - do you just have this big ugly hurkin' battery with some jumper cables attached to it, and then somehow rig this up to your CPAP?

Sorry - I'm not real battery-literate. How do I accomplish the whole hook up? I know you're very detail oriented - you've written some great explanations about how to do other things - could you help me out here with some further details?

Many many thanks!!!!
Barbara

[Chitownbabs]

Well I called the electric company here in Illinois and I will get some paperwork in the mail for the doctor to fill out regarding my medical device. Then it goes back to them and they decide if I should be on a priority list. I think I will go buy that UPS backup just in case!

Thanks for the help everyone.

[danw61]

For those people using/considering UPS devices, I thought that most of them periodically beep when power goes out. Sort of a warning that power is out. I don't see how I could sleep during a power outage while UPS is beeping. Do some of them not Beep? Is there a way to open up the UPS & disable the beep? Or am I just mistaken?

-Dan

[RipVW]

I got a CPAP backup battery, charging it now since Hannah is coming our way in the AM. Got this one, the BG-C222 CPAP BATTERY, it's great!
http://www.batterygeek.net/v/vspfiles/C ... PAod9i9Adg

[adrienneiii]

Thanks for mentioning this. Your comment inspired me to stop procrastinating about phoning the electric company about that very thing. They made a note on our record and said I should have the forms to send back some time next week. It was too easy!

Since my husband restores cars we already have a battery charger and a few stray car batteries lying about. I suppose my next project ought to involve acquiring a deep cycle marine battery and the cables to connect it to the cpap.

Adrienne

I was told by my Electric company. Because we had a huge storm come through. over 100 mile winds lots of rain and so on. Lots of damage and our electric went out among the other thousands of people. But I called them and told them I am on a medical device and I was up with in three hours. They told me they will send a form for me to fill out and have my doctor sign verifing that I am on a medical device, that way if it happens again, I am put on a priority list with others that have medical devices as well. If it is more severe were they can't get the power up with in days, they said they would set me up in a shelter, having priority if I needed it.

[Bearded_One]

Some UPS's (generally the more expensive ones) have switches that allows you to turn off the various alarms.

[FoxNewsFan]

Many many moons ago, one of my side jobs was to sell, install and service generators. I also built and lived in several cabins in the mountains with only generator power. I have one in my home now and one in my RV. I only mention these facts so, I hope, you will think I know something about the subject.

Generators are one of those subjects where there is a lot of misinformation.

The last major hurricane we had here was in 1985. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power. We were without power for 9 days. You could have had 20 notes from doctors and maybe it would have only taken 8 days to get your power back. The electric co. trucks couldn't get through because of the flooding and all the trees that were down. The electric company ran out of supplies like transformers, etc. They can't get your power back when the main line is down.

My point is that you have to rely on yourself, not some utility. My power was finally restored by a crew all the way from Canada. There just weren't enough workers.

You can Google generators and educate yourself. Thery have generator forums just like they have CPAP forums.

1 KW equals 1000 watts or 10 100 watt lightbulbs. A 2KW generator will run your ref., TV, CPAP, humidifier, a few lights and maybe even a little more. You can get a new one for $300- 1000. Even cheaper on E-Bay or Craigs List. I prefer the Honda EU2000iA. It will run about 15 hrs. on 1 gal. of gas, depending on how many things you are using and it is quiet. All you have to do is put it outside, plug in an extention cord and start it up.

I started mine up today and got 10 gals. of fresh gas and now I have peace of mind. And why not?

Ed

[billbolton]

The last major hurricane we had here was in 1985. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power. We were without power for 9 days. You could have had 20 notes from doctors and maybe it would have only taken 8 days to get your power back. The electric co. trucks couldn't get through because of the flooding and all the trees that were down. The electric company ran out of supplies like transformers, etc. They can't get your power back when the main line is down.

We had a similar experience back in the 1990s. A "once is 100 years" storm tore a track across the high ground of Sydney's North Shore and caused itense damage over several very "green" suburbs with lots of old, tall trees.

Even with power crews from all over the state concentrating on just the impacted area (which is a relativley small area of Sydney), the general damage was so intense that it took nearly 4 days to get power back on.

Cheers,

Bill

[Bearded_One]

Our condo association now forbids motor powered generators. Earlier this summer we had a power outage that lasted over night and some jerk had put a gasoline powered generator on his deck that he ran all night. The condo management office said that it received more calls about that obnoxiously loud generator than from any other issue so far this year. I was lucky that he lived on the other side of the complex from me.

[FoxNewsFan]

Our condo association now forbids motor powered generators. Earlier this summer we had a power outage that lasted over night and some jerk had put a gasoline powered generator on his deck that he ran all night. The condo management office said that it received more calls about that obnoxiously loud generator than from any other issue so far this year. I was lucky that he lived on the other side of the complex from me.

Bearded One,
This is a typical knee jerk reaction from a condo association. Instead of researching the problem, they just ban it. Now a person who really needs a generator for a long power outage has a problem.

That "jerk" you refer to either had a cheap gen. or one much too large for his needs. I'd guess cheap.

The one I recommended has a sound level of 53 dB(A) This is equal to a table fan set on high or a man's voice from 12' away. If you are outside and there is a mild breeze, you can't even hear if it's running or not.

Ed

[Bearded_One]

It is infinitely easier to ban engine powered generators than to try to specify allowed generators. I am not sure that I would want to endure having the upstairs neighbor running a generator overnight; their generator would be sitting on a wooden deck directly over our patio door, which would be open if it is warm. There would be both a noise issue and a vibration issue. There is also a county ordinance against storing gasoline in condos. Engine powered generators would probably be fine for single family homes, but they are probably impractical in condos.